Sunday, 14 August 2011

Healthy And Fit From My Perspective

I don't follow beauty pageants but I do follow local bloggers ... not that I am implying that they are the same thing ... which they are not!

Anyways, the Miss Hong Kong 2011 title was brought to my attention by Spike at Hongkie Town (see post here) and just having a glimpse at some of the contestants made me wince at their relative states of "healthiness".

Rebecca Zhu, winner of Miss Hong Kong 2011, looks to have a well-conditioned and healthy body. From reports, she is a ballerina so it stands to reason that her body is well conditioned. However, her fellow competitors did not seem to be up to challenging her in terms of physical appearance. Pic from here

Hyman Chu, runner-up, looks poorly conditioned and would appear to have trouble lifting a 5kg bag of brown rice or an LV handbag filled with luxury trinkets. Pic from here

Aside:Kimiko Date-Krumm's tennis career is all the more remarkable considering the Asian obstacles that she faced. She is naturally left-handed but was forced to play right-handed (just as many left-handed Asians are forced to use chopsticks with their right hands). Even with that disadvantage, Kimiko was ranked World No 4 in 1995 before retiring in 1996, 4 days before her 26th birthday. Almost 12 years later, in April 2008, Kimiko made her comeback, which has been successful.

The Good News is that these poorly-conditioned girls are relatively young, and therefore have time on their side to buck up their ideas and lifestyles. Generally, if people are willing to listen to experienced mentors and qualified experts, then the goal of having a healthy, balanced lifestyle is really not that hard to achieve.

One example of a local celebrity that springs to mind is veteran artiste Dodo Cheng (yes, another future HKSAR Name of the Day). She discovered exercise and fitness as well as eating healthily relatively late in her career and life, but since then she is reported to need her daily fix of exercise otherwise she suffers withdrawal symptoms.

There are many examples of Kimikos and Dodos out there who can help inspire us to healthy lifestyles.

I agree AW. Sadly, I think many Hong Kong women prefer the Hyman Chu look. Why exercise at all, when they can save money by not spending it on food or exercise, and use it for more important things such as luxury items and beauty treatments?

And why do many Hongkies consider Gemma Choi a favourite? Do they prefer women to have child-like physiques and "cute" characteristics like kids? This would not surprise me. Many Hongkies behave childishly too.

The trouble with Hongkies is that they are not brought up or encouraged to exercise or to do sports at school. Doing sports, or even riding a bike, is considered less important than taking music lessons and extra tuition classes. This means that in general there are poorly-coordinated and poorly-conditioned youngsters who can perhaps play a few tunes on the violin or piano, and accurately recite, parrot-fashion, huge chunks of English text that they do not understand. That's what the local education system is churning out.

Gemma, Nicole and others should never have been beauty pageant contestants. Just as many of the local celebrities should never be celebrities, since they are talentless and, like beauty contestants, appear to have only been chosen because they have a "pretty face".

Yeah, not just Hongkers, but throughout Asia, and also to an extent the other developed countries.

Anything to do with physical exertion (even, and especially sex) is shunned, to the extent that anyone (especially adults) who does sport is considered a bit odd.

To be fair, a rather large proportion of so called "celebrities/models/singers/actors/etc" around the world are glaringly lacking things like talent, intelligence, or common sense - hardly a Hongky phenomenon. Though perhaps pretty ladies are a bit more likely to succeed there.

But really, do you really expect any more of a beauty contest? If they gave them an hour to write an essay on a topic, or gave them some problem solving questions that might increase the IQ of winners by 1,000%, into the double digits!

What should judges be looking for in beauty pageants? It's a beauty contest, so the contestant that has the best beauty (i.e. beautiful face, beautiful body and beautiful mind) should be the winner. I am no expert, but it appears the judges for Miss Hong Kong, and the local audience, care more about the contestant having a beautiful face. Perhaps this is because it is easier to cover up the poor-conditioned body and mind, rather than the face?

It's good that I can discuss sensitive Hongky issues with you, as my brother's Hongky wife is exceedingly touchy about anything Hongky related. Even an observation that women have it tough over there is "insulting to Hong Kong". I'd get permanently banned if I brought up topics like this!

Looking child-like is genetic. How can you blame someone for the face they were born with? Most Asian women appear younger than they are, but I fail to see how this is their fault. It would be like blaming someone for having naturally red hair; its not something they chose? Also I find it a bit disturbing how women cannot be seen as healthy unless they are ripped out with muscle. People living on an eastern diet are generally more healthy despite their lack of bulging muscles due to their diet which contains a lot less dairy and gluten compared to Western diets.

Second, this blog agrees with the statement that the contestant "has the body of a child". It is an observation.

Third, beauty pageants in general have certain entry requirements. Therefore, to have a contestant who appears small and "child-like" seems strange when considering the attributes and appearance of other beauty contestants. Can you imagine if this child-like contestant won, and later became a national representative in the Miss World beauty pageant? She would certainly look out of her depth.

Regarding "being healthy", I think we need to define what "healthy" means. How would you define "healthy"? Are you defining "healthy" to mean "people living on an Eastern diet"? Please qualify.

I have no idea why this article just suddenly appeared in my RSS reader as a new post, but I have to say that it's one of the most painfully shallow, vapid blog posts I've seen in a very long time.

You cannot judge health from a photo, and frankly, you shouldn't be publicly attacking the supposed health and visual characteristics of others without providing photos showing how amazingly attractive you are.

Had I known this was the kind of content this blog ran, I probably wouldn't have subscribed in the first place. I know now; I'm unsubscribing.

Featured Post

About Me

Perhaps Thomas Jefferson said it best with: “Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error“. Much error exists in the world and this blog, from the perspective of one Hong Kong SAR resident, is a small attempt to minimize errors.
(this site was formerly HKSAR Blog)